Baked Whipped Sweet Potatoes with Pecan Pie Topping

I suppose any recipe with over 1,550 5 star reviews is a no brainer to try. 

Sweet potatoes are one of those things that every family has their favorite, traditional dish.  Some do baked with marshmallows, with a yummy sweet sauce, or baked into chewy goodness like my Mom's.  It's hard to step out of the box with something new, because people can get a little uptight about you messing with tradition on that day.
Me?  I could change up Thanksgiving every year quite easily, but the peeps get upset.

Which is why I tried this on our pre-Thanksgiving with friends, they were delightful guinea pigs and willing to try anything. We all decided this one was a keeper and I'm finishing this post so that others can do it for the Big Day coming up.

We all decided this would be equally yummy baked into a pie as dessert too.

Serves about 8-12

Ingredients

4 cups sweet potato, about 2 large

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 eggs, beaten

1/2 teaspoon salt

4 Tbsp butter (1/2 stick), softened

1/2 cup cream

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 tsp cinnamon 
1/2 tsp nutmeg

Topping
3/4 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

4 Tbsp butter, softened

3/4 cup chopped pecans, or walnuts

1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F, Bake sweet potatoes on a sheet pan in oven until tender, about 1 hour.  Peel and mash them.

 Prick them a couple times so they don't burst all over the place. Ask me how I know that...

In a large bowl, mix together the sweet potatoes, sugar, eggs, salt, butter, milk and vanilla extract. Mix until smooth. 

 

You can see I am multi-tasking here, melting the butter on the warm potatoes while 

mixing the milk, sugar, spices and eggs together.  I combined them after that...

Transfer to a 9x13 inch baking dish, or use 8-12 individual dishes. I used 8 which made large portions... which didn't seem to be a problem last night, however a smaller serving is probably a good idea.  

In medium bowl, mix the brown sugar and flour. Cut in the butter until the mixture is coarse. Stir in the pecans. Sprinkle the mixture over the sweet potato mixture.

Bake in the preheated oven 30 minutes, or until the topping is lightly brown.
 

 I have mixed the sugar, flour, butter and spices together (above) and getting ready to add the nuts next.